


holding on

by chii



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, OT3, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:43:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chii/pseuds/chii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s strange, to come back to her family instead of waiting for a family to come back to her. [post movie, spoilers]</p>
            </blockquote>





	holding on

**Author's Note:**

> WHAT AM I DOING I DON'T EVEN GO HERE. 
> 
> fml okay disclaimers: i'm not entirely happy with this but i know i'm not gonna write much more, if anything for this so i'm kind of washing my hands clean of it. also i did some brief skimming of the SW wiki but like, if shit is REAL WRONG let me know and i'll change it. 90% of this was me laughing into my hands and going "i have no fucking idea who even let me in here, shit."
> 
> many many many thanks to sa for looking this over, ur a peach, dear. 
> 
> also thanks to jame/sa/everyone on twitter for listening to me shriek about sw and ot3s because i'm a literal human disaster. 
> 
> please note the tags/warnings, i think i tagged for everything but just in case i didn't or missed something, let me know. i also anticipate this will be edited AGAIN for little tweaks.
> 
> warnings - PTSD/panic attacks, mentions of prior torture (from canon), non-negotiated restraints, general nsfwness.

The welcome back crew changes as the hours go on. 

Initially, it’s everyone - shoulder clasps and hugs and overwhelming, raucous laughter and shouts. The later it gets, the more people they lose, though. Others go back to their duties, to bed, to any number of things until all that remains are Finn and Poe, the three of them sitting in the mess hall nursing their drinks before an unspoken agreement sends them to their feet and out of the hall. 

Truthfully, she’s tired - exhausted, even. She and Skywalker have been all over the galaxy, it feels like, but she’s not about to let that stop her, not when Poe gives her a look that melts her down to her toes, even if she’ll never admit it. Finn’s just as eager; as pleased as he was to see that she returned with Skywalker, he’s far, far more excited about _her_ being back, grasping her hand the moment they leave the mess hall, holding it tightly. It’s strange, to come _back_ to people instead of waiting for others to come back to her.

It starts with her sandwiched between them, hands wandering, Finn and Poe trading kisses with her just as often as they shift to kiss over her shoulders. When they’ve wrung three orgasms out of her and one out of Finn, they turn their attention on Poe, pushing him down on the too-small cot, grinning. 

Later, Finn hasn’t moved from where he’s sprawled out on the far edge of the bed, skin shining with sweat, come splashed across his belly. It’s too much effort to wipe it away, apparently. He’s watching them, though; Rey remembers thinking he was watching them intently before, when she’d first hopped out of the Falcon but it’s nothing compared to now, raw focus on his face. Her tongue flicks over her lips and she watches him track the movement, watches him glance from them to the space between them like he’s weighing the merits of moving but Poe interrupts. 

“Hey, buddy, don’t strain yourself,” he says, and his voice is warm, teasing, a laugh curling through the words. Just like that Finn sinks back, braced on his elbows to watch them until they do some careful maneuvering and he can shift onto his side and she can scoot down between Poe’s thighs. She watches a shiver tremble through him, the cold of the metal walls sharp but not enough to get him to move away, not when he wants to give them room to work. It’s not entirely altruistic, of course; it gives him a good view of everything going on. 

“I’m not, I’m good.” As if to illustrate, Finn waves a hand grandly, smacks it solidly on the top metal frame of the bunk and yanks it back a moment later with a stifled yelp. There’s silence for a moment before Poe melts back into the bed and Rey stifles her laughter against the arch of his hip, smoothing a kiss along the line there where Finn had bit and kissed marks into his skin earlier One mark stands out stark against the paler skin there; she smiles up at him a moment and shifts to the side, sucks a matching mark there just for the way Poe’s laughter trembles, catches in his throat like these little moments are too much to handle all at once. 

For all that he’d been the more experienced one by far when it came to this, it’d only meant that she and Finn were all the more eager to overwhelm him just as much as humanly possible, taking to it with the sort of eagerness that left Poe pushed back against the bed while two sets of hands wandered all over him and they alternated kissing the breath out of him. 

Now, at least, they’re on even ground. The laughter fades to a point where she hears his breathing hitch from her touching him rather than from shared amusement. Poe watches her just as intently as Finn when she curls her hand loose around his cock, hand moving in in soft, lazy strokes. 

Lasting as long as he can without touching them, Finn apparently gives up the attempt at just watching and slides in close to fit himself up against the line of their bodies. He’s the most tactile of the three of them; for all that he scooted aside to give them room, the moment they get started again he’s got a hand out and is tugging it through her hair gently, sweeping it out of her face while she eases her mouth down around the thick curve of Poe’s cock. 

This part isn’t the easiest to get down when they’re cramped for space like this, but she’s always been determined. Difficult working conditions only make her try for it harder, stubborn nearly to a fault. It doesn’t help that their bunks are meant for _sleeping_ one by one, not three to a bed, all elbows and knees in uncomfortable places, but it works judging by the choked noise that Poe makes when her tongue drags down the underside. 

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Finn’s hand clench and unclench in the bed sheets like he’s trying to figure out what to do with the two of them now that he’s this close but down for the count. 

The bed trembles underneath them as there’s a sudden shift when she slides down again; Poe and Finn squirm a moment and she rolls her eyes up to watch Poe lift his arm and let Finn slide under it until they’re pressed together with Finn’s cheek resting on Poe’s shoulder. It can’t be too comfortable and Poe’s probably going to lose feeling in his arm a few moments later but she knows _why_ he does it the moment that Finn’s face goes all soft and pleased, pressing eager kisses to the line of his jaw. 

Finn’s other hand - the one on her head - stays in place, not holding her there, not forcing anything, just a reminder, like Finn can’t bear to be this close and not touch her too. Keeping up a rhythm with her hand and her mouth while watching them is an exercise in patience; she keeps getting distracted by a hint of tongue in their kisses, by watching Finn grin or Poe press his lips against whatever skin is nearest, muffling his noises there. Tilting her head down again, she focuses on what’s in front of her, slips a hand down and cups his balls just to hear his breathing hitch, drags her tongue along the tip to hear him stifle another groan.

His thighs tremble underneath her, tensing as he draws his knees up and brackets her loosely there, clearly holding back on fucking up into her mouth like he wants to, like Finn had when he’d gone down on him. It isn’t as if she’d mind, exactly - she’s had a few tumbles back on Jakku, it isn’t going to startle her, but she decides to help, at least a little. 

Somehow, when training with Skywalker, she doesn’t think he’d ever anticipated her using the Force for anything other than _survival_ , but here they are. It takes a moment to ground herself, to let everything else fall away until she can reach for it, twist it and use it to pin him gently to the thin cot. 

Finn notices something, even if he doesn’t know what it is; he pulls back from the kiss with his brows raised just as Poe laughs. “Sorry, should we move-” Poe starts, shifting until he realizes he _can’t_. She sees it, the moment it goes wrong, the moment Poe’s face goes tight and his eyes wide, tension flooding his body. He jerks against it, fighting her so sharply that it’s jarring and forces her to let go of it immediately, but whatever is wrong is very wrong and there’s no changing that. 

“Are you alri--” she starts, pressing a cool hand to his thigh as she sits up carefully so her head doesn’t smack the top bunk but the bed is a flurry of movement. She’s not certain how he does it, given how tangled up in them he was, but he jerks, shoves them back and skitters out of bed and onto the ground gracelessly, the thunk echoing hollowly in the room. “ _Poe-_ ”

Both she and Finn jerk forward, nearly knocking into each other as they try to reach him, but he’s already pressed back in the corner of the room near the simple metal locker currently holding what clothing they’d managed to hang up before this started. It can’t be comfortable - it’s _cold_ , all the cement and metal, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from curling up, knees to his chest, arms holding them so tightly that she can’t tell if it’s the chill or tension making him tremble. 

“Uh, Rey?” Finn asks, turning to her as if she knows what’s going on, his posture screaming uncertainty, torn between staying back to give him space, and wanting to get close, to comfort him. She knows, because she’s in much the same boat, swinging her legs over the edge of the bunk, ducking her head down to keep from knocking it while they sort this out. Both she and Finn have dealt with this before - the nausea, the way it’s hard to breathe through the choking sense of panic, the way your body prickles with cold sweat. Thus far, Poe’s been the rock when it comes to the three of them, but even Poe is human. 

“M’fine,” Poe says, though it’s more of a mumble through shuddering breaths, his head dipped down to rest on his knees. He glances up for a moment and Rey sees the second he realizes they’re not buying any of what he’s selling. “I just- I’m fine. I’ll _be_ fine.” 

“That sounds more likely,” Rey mutters and slides off the bed. She doesn’t go too near him, not yet, but circles around to grab something out of the far end of the closet. They keep the spare blankets up there - thick, slightly musty green ones in every cabin. She’s relieved to note that it applies here, too, that there’s something familiar from Poe’s room, even if it’s not his blanket. Behind her, she hears the bed creak and Finn rises as well, his previous lethargy post-orgasm forgotten. He looks just as shaken as she feels, glancing between the two of them. “Finn?” 

“It’s-- something you saw or felt, right?” 

The room goes quiet save for Poe’s shuddery breathing and the soft hum of the lights above them. Rey doesn’t push, lets him handle this since he seems to have a better idea of it, but the reason is slowly coalescing in her head once she runs over what happened up till that point. 

“Yeah.” Poe gropes for the blanket when she slides it across the ground toward him, fingers grasping it after the second attempt. He winds it around himself as best as he can, not reaching out to them yet so she and Finn stay back near the bunks. While they wait, she busies herself with stealing two of Finn’s shirts. One for her, shrugged on to give them some bit of modesty for whatever talk they need to have and the other tossed at Finn, though he doesn’t do more than catch it and hold it to his chest a moment, watching Poe. Nudity wasn’t ever a huge issue with him; from what she gathered, they may as well have gathered all the Stormtroopers up and hosed them off when it came time to get clean. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Some of the others used to-” Finn starts, then stops again, glancing off to the side with a grimace. He doesn’t often talk about his time with the First Order but Rey doesn’t need to question him to know that’s what he means. “When you went too long without reconditioning, some of us-- of them would...I don’t know. Break down. They’d seen too much, something would set them off. Usually after a really ‘successful’ mission. When I went on my first, I-- well. You know.” 

There’s no missing the bitterness in his tone, there. It might have been his first one, but she knows that he knew others who had other missions before that. They’ve met too many others who saw Finn and were furious, calling him a traitor as they tried to kill him twice as hard as they tried to kill her and Poe. She’s not foolish enough to think that they were a family, exactly - kidnapped from their real families and raise together doesn’t make you _family_ , but she knows it hurts him. She can feel the ache, nearly a tangible thing every time it happens to him. 

Swallowing around the tightness in her throat, Rey shifts closer to Finn, offering her hand, unsurprised when he gropes for it and holds it tight enough that it aches a little. In some awful way, this never would have happened had Finn not gone on that mission, had he not met Poe, but that doesn’t make her feel _better_ exactly.

“It was me,” Rey says abruptly, not missing the way Poe flinches, his eyes cutting away from them. It only solidifies it; it was her, what she’d done. Luke said that her training wasn’t finished, but he’d needed to speak to his sister about something before they would continue together. She didn’t have adequate control, didn’t have--

“No, no, hey-- don’t, Rey.” Poe’s voice jolts her out of her own thoughts. He’s not the one training to be a Jedi, so how does he _know_? 

There’s the rustle of the blankets as he forces himself up gingerly, each movement looking like it takes a tremendous amount of effort to complete. Together, they take either side of him and manage to sit as one, none of them knocking their heads on the bunk. “It’s not your fault. Back on the ship- before that, even. When the First Order was hunting down the map, the one I gave to BB-8. He held me still when I tried to stop him; did it again, went through my _head_ when I was on the Order’s ship and he was trying to find out what I knew.” 

Just like that, she realizes and feels nausea roll through her, curling heavy her gut. She should have known; Kylo Ren had done the same to her and she remembers the sweeping sense of terror, of anger at not being able to do anything but breathe sharp and shallow through her mouth and clenched teeth. Remembers the feeling of helplessness, at not being able to do a single thing to stop him while he held her there, looking as though it was barely taking an ounce of effort. Poe would have felt the same thing and she’d just done it to him without a second thought, without even _realizing._ Worse yet, she remembers hearing about the state that he’d come back in, about how they were able to train new recruits to withstand interrogation because of what he’d been through.

In unison, they both huddle up against Poe’s sides, comfort for him just as much as them; Finn’s arm looping around Poe’s back is the only thing that keeps her solidly there, his hand reaching for her arm again. He doesn’t hold her - knows better than to do that, but he just _touches_ her, grounding without even trying while he leans in and rests his temple on Poe’s blanket-clad shoulder. There’s nothing else to be said save for what she should have said earlier: “I’m sorry. I didn’t - I should’ve thought.” 

Somewhere in the span of these moments that drag out far, far too long, Poe’s relaxed bit by bit until his breathing isn’t so audible. They’re all still thrumming with tension, but he’s the first to move, the first to initiate more contact with either of them, tugging her into a graceless hug that mashes her face against his bare collarbone. It should be uncomfortable and it should be annoying, being manhandled like that but it’s not. He smells like sweat and sex and faintly, like the aftershave that Finn had discovered and taken to wearing. He smells _familiar_ , feels familiar under her hands and she shamelessly folds herself in against him, groping out for Finn to drag him in too. When she inhales, she smells it on Finn, too, proof of the little rebellions he’s still discovering how to make against the First Order, ways to make himself more an individual.

“ _I_ didn’t think about it,” Poe says ruefully, dragging the blanket around all three of them. It doesn’t really cover much; he’s still the barest out of all of them, but the attempt is appreciated. “Let me get a shirt and some pants on and we can move to my room.” 

None of them are particularly eager to let each other go, but they break apart from the huddle and move about the tiny room all the same. Finn folds the blankets back into straight, neat corners and strips the bed for later, the linens piled into the rest of the dirty clothes. New sheets are put on with the same military precision while Rey pads about the room and gathers up what they’d discarded, shimmying into her pants, her underclothes shoved into a pocket for the time being. 

It’s a familiar series of movements and there is comfort in the routine of it. They fool around, two or three of them in the bunks here because it’s closer to the main stretch in case anything goes wrong. Out of anywhere, it’s the best if they need to stop instantly and run to the hangar or anywhere else: it’s the most centrally located. Poe’s own quarters aren’t far, but they are marginally larger and have the benefit of a bigger bed, which means after they’re done they generally head there to sleep on clean sheets. 

It has the added benefit of not waking any potential roommates up in the barracks when one of them comes back at odd hours, too. Poe wakes up at the slightest provocation, but also falls asleep the fastest out of either of them and has made it clear a dozen times over that they’re both welcome. Finn takes him up on it more of then than Rey dares to, but it’s comforting just knowing the option is there. 

The walk to his quarters is a short one, but she can’t shake the lingering frustration at herself and how a perfectly good night was interrupted because she didn’t _think_ after all that time Skywalker spent trying to drill the necessity of using the Force _properly_ into her. In retrospect, it seems clear, it seems like a given, but at the time-- well. No sense playing it over and over again in her head, not right now. Poe opens the door for them and she hears it hiss shut, locking firmly. In the corner, BB-8 whistles cheerfully at them, lights flickering in the dimness before someone thumbs the main lights on. 

Poe drags a hand over the round head of the droid, while Finn waves and Rey wiggles her fingers at it in response.

“Hey.” Poe knows better than to sneak up on her, at least; they’re still trying to break Finn of the over-eager puppy habit of coming at them excitedly. He comes to her from the front and side, already looking better, color in his cheeks again, the awful blankness chased out of his face, away from his eyes. “I know the difference between you and him.” 

Somehow, he knows just the words to say to make the tension bleed out of her shoulders, to make her blow out a frustrated breath and lean against him, her forehead thudding against the center of his chest. “I’d hope so,” she mutters and is rewarded with the low rumble of a laugh in his chest. He doesn’t drag her into a hug, doesn’t do anything more than cup a hand to the back of her head just briefly and then pull away so he can start toward the bed. Finn’s already claimed the side closest to the door. It means the other two have to crawl over him to get there, but he’s won the unspoken argument about who faces the door tonight by virtue of getting there first. 

“You’re in the middle tonight, don’t argue.” Rey points a finger at Poe as she passes, tugging her underclothes out of her pocket to set next to a steadily growing pile of _her_ things that she keeps leaving in here. That’s a whole other problem to deal with when she has the capability to think past the heavy blanket of exhaustion.

Poe’s room is slowly, steadily going from _his room_ to _his room, but also theirs_ with larger and larger amounts of her and Finn’s belongings in it. Nevermind the fact that she and Finn are still wrapping their mind around actually _having_ items to leave behind. For too long she remembers a time where most of her belongings fit in a satchel. For too long, Finn didn’t have anything but his armor. Now, there are little touches here and there. One of the kits she uses to clean and maintain the lightsaber sits near Finn’s slowly growing pile of different colored shirts and knick-knacks he barters for. There’s no particular use to them - no resale value which baffles her, but they’ve all taken to grabbing things when they leave and come back, little things that make him brighten up in a heartbeat. 

Clambering over Finn, she lets herself collapse onto the other side of the bed and feels it shift and dip, Poe gingerly picking his way over the bed until he can settle in between them. It’s done with minimal fussing, the three of them practiced at this by now. Finn rolls onto his side to face the doorway and Poe slides up behind him, draping an arm loose over his waist while Rey takes up the back. She’s not quite tall enough to properly spoon Poe or Finn, but the two of them seem to delight in it, which means more often than not she ends up with one of them in front of her. Her arms aren’t quite long enough to reach all the way over and rest on Finn’s belly like Poe’s does if they’re back to front properly but they make it work with her shifted lower to accommodate their height. The cool tip of her nose presses against the soft material of Poe’s shirt and she hugs them both close as tight as she can manage. It’s not perfect, sure, but it’s _good_.

It’s not a particularly restful night of sleep for any of them, not after the weeks they’ve had. Finn’s been gone for the better part of the week and before that, Poe was off flying and Rey has been in and out, training with Skywalker. Sex isn’t on any of their minds, not right now, despite how it was left unfinished. It’s not the first time, or the last that they’ve been interrupted during it. There is no need for a discussion about if they want to finish, not when Poe’s still thrumming with tension under his skin, Rey can feel it like an itch under her own. Gently, she curls up against him from behind, her knees pressing into the backs of his, matching her breathing to theirs as best as she can. 

She’s still the last one to drop off, despite breathing soft and slow, even with the other two finally back with her. Spooning might be a good way to comfort each other, but it’s not exactly the best to sleep, not when she tends to curl in a ball, Poe tends to drape on anything nearby, and Finn manages to somehow take up any inch of space not used by the two of them. She gives it a little longer, listening to them breathe and then gives up. Gently untangling herself from the two of them, she reaches her newly freed hand up to the shelf above Poe’s bed and gropes until she comes across the micro-book she was reading earlier. 

Not being able to sleep isn’t new, and neither is the reading; the micro-books are so old that it’s a wonder they still work, but it’s the best way to get any sort of information on the Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca’d made it clear that a fair bit of running the ship was just knowing all of her quirks, but she’d rather know all of her quirks _and_ know all of the tech aspects as well. 

Beside her, Finn mumbles something in his sleep and splays, arm tilted at an angle that can’t be comfortable. She’s gentle when she reaches out, adjusting it so it’s a little less likely to ache in the morning, and then goes back to reading. 

In the morning, Rey wakes to having more room in the bed and her micro-book being gently tugged from where it rests on her belly and placed somewhere else - probably back on the shelf. When she’d even fallen asleep, she doesn’t know, but Poe’s already out of bed, freshly washed with a towel slung low around his hips. Once the item’s on the shelf, he moves to rifle through his closet, no tension, no shakiness to his movements. It’s a nice sight, helps ease the gnawing sense of guilt that rises back up the more she wakes up. Beside her, Finn does a rather impressive job of stealing most of the room on the bed, but it’s nothing a little creative arrangement doesn’t fix. 

“You should go back to sleep,” Poe whispers. “I’ll bring back food from the mess.” 

It’s very possible that she could. Finn’s breath is soft and humid against her skin and exhaustion clings to her like a second skin. It can’t be that late in the morning yet, not if she’s still this tired. Distantly, she thinks she ought to check in with him, she ought to make sure he’s doing alright, but it’s all too easy to get lulled back to sleep when he dips a hand down and smooths her hair out of her face, tugging the covers up over both of them. Later, they’ll work through this together. They’ll talk about what to do and not do during these stolen little moments of intimacy and work out what to do when things don’t go according to plan. There’s comfort in knowing that they can work these things out, that every time one of them leaves, they come back to each other.

Right now, though, she pushes her face into Finn’s shoulder and mumbles something like an agreement at Poe, along with a hand gesture she hopes comes across as _bring back caf_. If not, she’ll brave the mess hall to get some herself. For the time being, she’s sleep-warm and groggy and falling back asleep to Finn’s chest moving steadily up and down under her hand is too tempting, so that’s just what she does.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/SarahKFetter) if you like watching a human disaster yell about gaming/movies/etc i guess


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